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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Another Worry From Global Warming: Parasites that EAT Starfish SPERM!!!

This week, we have what sounds like a horrific title: Starfish Sperm Eating Parasites!

Parasites are weird and freaky...and how many people out there knew that Sea Stars even HAD parasites???yes! they do. So, let's get to it!1. The Parasite- and....it does WHAT???
So, in the early 2000s, Bill Stickle, a marine biologist at Louisiana State University authored several studies looking at the parasitic relationship between a ciliated protozoan Orchitophrya stellarum (described way back in 1907) and several different sea stars from the North Pacific.

2. Orchitophrya LIVES AMONG and EATS starfish Sperm!Yes that's right! These little single-celled animals probably enter through the gonopores (although there's lots of big spaces for a tiny critter to enter on a starfish) and invade the gonads/testes of male sea stars (location indicated below with red arrows) and get right to work eating up all of their little starfish baby-makers!

Interestingly, the parasites do NOT attack the ovaries (female reproductive structures).

This has some MAJOR impact on the amount of sperm produced by the host species, which are particularly ripe in brooding winter males and spring-summer broadcasting males (i.e., when they are ejecting sperm into the water and females are ejecting eggs into the water at the same time).

But WHAT species? Well, apparently, these parasites like asteriids..which are very familiar beasts such as (this is an incomplete list)

Pisaster ochraceusLeptasterias spp.and...the North Pacific Asterias amurensis (now invasive in Australia). Early studies on the interaction between the parasite and their hosts were actually performed on this species...The Atlantic Asterias forbesi, was actually one of the first species discovered to host the parasite-from populations in Europe and the east coast of North America, which may be where it originated. But its unclear how/where this happened..

3. Orchitophrya is a KICK-ASS Starfish sperm-eating Parasite! (but can live life on its own)

Stickle's lab discovered that the parasites CAN actually live outside and away from sea stars, but they become smaller, they become less developed and their mouth actually moves away from the front of their body!!

Now, when you FEED them asteriid starfish sperm? ALL of these changes REVERSE themselves!! So, Orchitophrya is considered a "facultative" parasite...that is it can live free of the host when it needs to do so.

The range of the parasite seems to have gotten as far south as Washington but based on several of the surveys taken there were only a few regions that had unusually low sperm outputs from parasitized male adults.3. When it gets (global warming) HOT, the parasites get BUSY.There has been much concern over what will happen to various marine invertebrates as global warming intensifies. And there has been some concern about how, even our local faunas, such as the Ochre Stars will be affected.

After 21 days, so much of the sperm in the testes has been consumed that effectively, the hosts have partly to completely lost their "reproductive potential". That's effectively castration (emasculation?). Yikes!

So, what does that mean?

As all good scientists do, the authors warn that lab results don't always translate directly into what you see out in the "wild". There's a lot of variation in temperature of local areas and of course, the various populations and so on.. and more work needs to be done..

HOWEVER, they do note an interesting case of temperature increase of 1.5 degrees C per decade from 1976 to 1997 in Tokyo Bay. The temperature increase corresponded to the first detection of the parasite in Tokyo Bay in 1996! So, maybe some cause for concern is here?This is a great example of how global warming's effect could conceivably extend beyond simply the direct effects on marine faunas. Who knows what weird combination of dominos could be altered?

6 comments:

Facultative parasitism is quite cool though; there's an example closer to home (well, more relevant to our self-absorbed species. Wouldn't all species be self-absorbed?): Naegleria fowlerii, the "brain-eating amoeba". For all the bad press it gets (usually supplemented by a photo of an amoeba from an entirely different supergroup...), it actually only infects about a couple cases a year or so; some years go by with no incidences of infection at all. Unfortunately, it's entirely lethal, which scares people. Interestingly, Naegleria is a genus of warm-loving amoebae who like to live in warm springs and such; N.fowlerii, the infectious kind, has a higher temperature resistance threshold than its close relative N.gruberi, which is non-pathogenic and used in labs.

Sadly, the media insists on referring to the poor innocent creature as a parasite. It is not. It's just an opportunist who can't tell your brain from a water-filled hole in the ground. Just like us. (kidding ;-))

And for sperm-eating awesomeness, plenty of apicomplexans (group including malaria and toxo and such) thrive on gonads. Monocystis, a gregarine api, lives in earthworm seminal vesicles; they have a high incidence of infection, so if you're ever up for some gregarine-watching, just slice up an earthworm and smear its seminal vesicles on a slide =D

I won't get started on the awesomeness of ciliates...that's just dangerous >_>

Unfortunately, I don't think so. The methods all indicated that they were only able to check on the after effects of the ciliates on the host in terms of sex ratios and looking at the gonads in cross-section.

Okay, now...I find it interesting that these parasites are only found in the male gonad, leaving the ovaries alone. (As you said in your blog, I didn't even know starfish had gonadal parasites.) Of course, I'm sure there are other parasites that feed on the developing eggs. Did you happen upon any similar studies on them?

About Me

I pursue starfish related adventure around the world with a critical eye and an appreciation for weirdness.
Support has been courtesy of the National Science Foundation but the views and opinions presented herein are mine and do not reflect the opinions of them or any affiliated institutions.
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